The present invention relates to a punching cutter for cutting thin materials such as photosensitive materials.
In the formation of photographic prints of photographic images, a virgin photographic paper which is wound in the form of a roll is pulled out, and images are printed on the photographic paper from a negative film and developed to form a photographic print which is then cut by using a cutting edge having a straight edge so that the respective images may be separated.
However, in some cases, image portions having a given shape are punched out from a photographic print to form products of the kind mainly used for driver's licenses and ID cards.
In these cases, a cutter provided with a male die having a shape which conforms to a punch-out shape and a female die which receives the male die is required for punching out the image portions on a long photographic print. Such a cutter is therefore rather large in size and high in price, and the dimensions of the engagement between the male die and the female die must be adjusted during the mounting thereof.
For this reason, the inventor has already proposed a thin material-punching cutter which does not require the production of a female die nor adjustment of the dimension when given shapes are punched out from a thin material to form finished products (refer to Japanese Patent Application Nos. 203476 and 203477/1986).
In such a thin material punching cutter, since a punching edge is pressed against a receiving member having the form of a flat plate and the thin material in question is cut while being held, if the stroke of the punching edge is not correctly maintained, precise punching cannot be performed, or the punching edge may be damaged.